So. This came about because of a roleplay conversation between Leo and Luke, sometime… a couple few decades after Coverleaf is built, so in like the 70s, 80s cohorts, IIRC.

But I think it’ll happen in any timeline eventually, once Luke realizes how many assumptions he’s been working on.

“I want you to tell me about being Kept.” Luke had, although he’d deny it if ever asked, practiced that line until it no longer sounded stupid. “What you remember the most, what you hated, anything you liked.”

The student — Denny, a boy born for cy’Linden if there ever had been one, never mind that his mother was cy’Valerian and his father sy’Ginger — raised his eyebrows at LUke. “Do I have to?”

“Your Mentor asked you to cooperate,” Luke reminded him. He would notlet himself get baited. The cy’Linden kids knew how easy it was, and it was practically a sport for them.

Denny had to be thinking the same thing. “Is this punishment for… that thing with the water balloons?”

Despite himself, Luke smiled. The thing with the water balloons had actually been pretty clever. “No. If it helps, you can think of it as homework.”

“…from the gym teacher?” Denny’s body language was far stiller than his facial expressions, which had been made for the stage.

(was there theatre anywhere? DId Cloverleaf have theatre? He should find out… later.)

“Would you rather run laps?” Luke let it be a growl. Denny’s shoulders suggested that he was getting more nervous the more Luke failed to rise to any of his bait.

It worked. Denny looked at him as if he’d asked something particularly foolish. “Well, yeah. Of course.”

“I’d rather be running laps,” Luke admitted. It had the benefit of being completely true. “But this is homework for me, too.”

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